Illness as Interreligious Encounter: A Study from Religiously-Affiliated Hospitals

Wednesday Forum – 12 April 2023

Everyone, regardless of ethnicity, race, religion, and social status, is vulnerable to illness. Illness is a part of universal and inevitable of human fragility. One of main need of people who are ill, is a healthcare service which is generally provided by the hospital. Hence, illness is not only a complex medical and biological analyses that require objective evidence of malfunction at the microscopic level, but illness is also a social event. However, within hospital patients not only get healthcare service patients but that moment also potentially exposes them to greater diversity. Human encounter within hospital can be more challenging and interesting when the hospital is religiously affiliated hospital, because the religious conviction of the patient and the hospital are the basis for interreligious encounter. What kind of dynamics can occur in interreligious encounters within religiously affiliated hospitals? Can illness as human fragility and encounters within religiously affiliated hospitals strengthen interreligious relations?

Jekonia Tarigan just finished his studies at ICRS UGM last February. He is a freelance researcher. He had taught as a non-permanent lecturer at the Anthropology study program, Faculty of Literature and Culture, University of Papua. In July, he will present part of his dissertation at the Institute for Advanced Study in Asian Cultures and Theologies which organized by the Divinity School of Chung Chi College, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and funded by the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia.

The full poster of this event is available here